1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium having a data structure for managing reproduction of at least video data representing multiple reproduction paths as well as methods and apparatuses for reproduction and recording.
2. Description of the Related Art
Owing to technical improvement in the fields of video/audio data compression, digital modulation/demodulation, and so on, a digital television broadcast system broadcasting TV signals in the form of digital data stream is being standardized rapidly.
In the digital television broadcast system, audio/video (A/V) signals to be broadcasted are compressed according to the data compressing rule specified by MPEG 2 (Moving Picture Experts Group) and the compressed A/V data are broadcasted in the form of transport stream (TS), which is also defined in MPEG 2 standard, composed of successive 188-byte-long transport packets (TPs).
The digital TV broadcast system, which will be commercialized soon owing to technical improvement of A/V data compression and transmission, is able to support much higher-quality of video and audio than an analog TV system. Furthermore, it ensures data compatibility with a digital communication device, a digital storage device, etc.
In the meantime, a new device is being developed to prepare for commercialization of digital TV broadcast system. That is a digital recorder, able to receive the TS of digital broadcast programs and to record it on a writable HD-DVD, is being developed. Such a digital recorder will be widely used as the digital TV broadcast system is commercialized in earnest.
A single physical broadcast channel (called ‘RF channel’ in general) has about 6 MHz bandwidth which ensures 19.4 Mbps data rate. This data rate can carry a single HD-TV broadcast signal or about four SD-TV signals. Such a logical or virtual channel carrying one SD-TV signal in an RF channel is called a ‘digital channel’.
In other words, a single RF channel sometimes includes several digital channels, namely, sub-channels which carry mutually-different broadcast programs.
Therefore, a DVD recorder being developed may have to record two or more digital channels simultaneously at a user's request. However, if a DVD recorder records a plurality of digital channels and creates management information through the same manner as it does for a single digital channel, a DVD could not tell digital channels apart among a recorded stream of digital channels. Namely, a user could not select only one program, i.e., one digital channel to be reproduced among the recorded plurality of digital channels.